Town Square

Three teens busted for Palo Alto burglary

Original post made
on Mar 20, 2017

Palo Alto police have arrested three teenagers who they said sneaked into an unoccupied home in the Greer Park North neighborhood through an unlocked window last month and made off with jewelry, several laptops and an e-reader.

Posted by Youth
a resident of Old Palo Alto
on Mar 20, 2017 at 4:03 pm

Usually they have programs for youths who are first time offenders for minor crimes. This is not a minor crime. Something has gone wrong at home where the kid is committing a crime while on bail for a previous crime. This incident is worth a look into by a social worker at his home.

Posted by susallabee
a resident of East Palo Alto
on Mar 20, 2017 at 4:15 pm

I don't want to hear that Trump Era trashing of another human soul that is so common these days. IMO the brain of an 18 year old is not fully formed as is that of an adult. Emotional maturity? Forget it. He's not a 40 year old hardened criminal. Turning other kids on to drugs is a horrendous crime. But give him his dignity. Talk to him in your mind or about him out loud like he is your brother. He TOTALLY needs to be held accountable for his crimes but can we not care for the good in him, the salvageable? If he has sociopathic tendencies and can never change then so be it. The evil that is our prison system will unleash more untold abuse on this young being and it will take his own good force within himself, the hands of others who have been there and understand and some good positive force, God, the Universe, the Great Spirit, what have you to re-mold this soul and make him walk a better path. May God bless his soul. In this world we need more kindness. This kid obviously didn't have the village that he needed to raise him.

Posted by Hmmm
a resident of East Palo Alto
on Mar 20, 2017 at 4:55 pm

Under the older boy's control? Those kids chose to commit crimes with the older kid. It wasn't a "one-man crime wave" by any means. Just another lame attempt to pretend that Palo Alto youth are innocent of wrongdoing.

Posted by drugs and crime
a resident of Palo Alto High School
on Mar 20, 2017 at 5:21 pm

It would help if people around teens getting into drugs try to stop them before they go into a life of petty and then more serious crime.
Personally, as someone w/o addictive tendencies, I can't relate to drug addiction -- but it's clear ingredients brought in from China to make fentanyl/look-alike drugs, heroin/opiods and etc. are life-wrecking. Difficult for our taxpayer dollars to guaranteee compliance from the addict, however, despite the current government sympathy and extended attempts to rehab such persons. Meanwhile, avoiding crime should be a priorty in anyone's life - must be difficult to ever recover from THAT....sad.
I am in a position of most of us -- trying to constantly avoid becoming a victim: theft/rovver/car-jacking and whatnot-
it's a challenging time. We have had a huge uptick in property rime around here...

Posted by Big Brother
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Mar 20, 2017 at 8:04 pm

The 18-year-old looks at least like he's in a bit of shock. He doesn't look like he is in a state of disrepair, and from the acne it would seem he's probably going through that fun/awful stage where hormones make it a challenge to think straight sometimes. We [most of us at least] don't know anything about him other than a few words summarizing his rap sheet. Would rather see tax money go into analyzing the younger adult miscreants to see if there's something fundamental that could be mitigated through classes to help build vocational and financial planning skills.

Posted by let me be blunt
a resident of College Terrace
on Mar 20, 2017 at 8:14 pm

Breaking shocking comments by those above. Seems like the "victims" are no longer the people that got their house broken into and goods stolen but the kids that somehow (and no one on this chain really knows) had a poor upbringing.

Whatever happened to accountability for your own actions in this country??? Liberals policies at work- everyone is a victim........ if you screw your life up blame someone else.

@ susallabee: Why in the world did you feel the need to bring up President Trump in this discussion? There is something very wrong in a world in which someone feels the need to bring up their disgust for the president in response to an article about juvenile delinquents. It's not like similar crimes didn't happen throughout the last decade.

Personally, I am glad to see that these young men were arrested. I hope that some adequate restitution to their victims can be made.

There is a terrible feeling of violation when someone breaks into your home. It happened to me when I was in college. I even felt a need to move. Luckily, I was just renting. I would hate to have been forced to live in a house that was so soullessly ransacked.

Posted by Sanctimonious City
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Mar 20, 2017 at 9:04 pm

The $3.5M the county is setting aside for the illegal immigrant defense fund and the $200K the school district is going to spend on renaming schools might come in handy for addiction and rehabilitation services.

But of course, Liberal Progressive government doesn't see marijuana as a feeder drug or drug related crimes as anything but an illness.

In their social circles it is trendy and hip with no recognition of the utter deveastation to families and communities caused by drugs.

Watch a few re-run episodes of the TV series Intervention or just look at the Palo Alto crime blotter and they will show otherwise.

Posted by Concerned neighbor
a resident of Midtown
on Mar 20, 2017 at 9:10 pm

This boy and his cohort are known to the Midtown shopping area. They cause nothing but disturbance and problems, what are they called? The Midtown Gang? Something like that. Paly High students too. From this mugshot he looks about as concerned as his actions show. Sadly the path he has taken means some sort of juvenile incarceration which will just give him exposure to more drug use, less education and options For his future. It is so sad to wonder what led him here but he needs to take responsibility. Well done PA Police for getting this handled! Good riddance I say..

About 18 months ago, I was riding my bicycle through Mitchell Park and around the Cubberly Center.

When I made my way home, I passed a tall, slim anglo teenage boy spray-painting on the walls of Adobe Creek (on East Charleston). I stopped and said, "Hey -- why are you doing that?" He flippantly replied, "What do you care?" I told him, "I care. I live around here and I don't want to see this place get dirty." He nervously claimed that he lives around here too...and then jumped on his small bike, yelled a few things and quickly rode off toward Middlefield.

I was surprised for two reasons: 1.) This happened in broad daylight on a Saturday or Sunday; and, 2.) I'm not used to seeing teenagers in Palo Alto tagging public or private property.

I don't know what motivated a teenage boy to do this. However, as much as I know that upbringing is important, I wouldn't think of blaming his parents or teachers. There has to be consequences for such actions. As bad as tagging might be, burglary and selling narcotics is even worse.

Sadly, this young man and the two other teens are probably unaware to how this will affect their lives in the future. Indiscretions like this might affect the rest of their lives. Personally, I favor the idea of "atonement" in the law -- in which years of clean living free from lawbreaking can give former lawbreakers a "tabula rasa" (clean slate). At that point (after restitution and a certain amount of years), their police record would be automatically expunged. After all, it doesn't help society or them if they face lifelong consequences (e.g., inability to secure housing, schooling, good jobs, etc.) for youthful indiscretions.

However, I also understand that society has to put its collective foot down too. IF nothing is done, these things become a stepping stone to even worse offenses. I hope that these young men learn their lessons.

@ Curmudgeon: Wow -- it is amazing how ideologically obsessed that some people are that they feel a need to bring up the President of the United States in a thread about three foolish young criminals.

Someone else (with a different user name) made the same claim recently on the Palo Alto Online. Please cite the actual statement and specific wording (in context) if you're going to make such a claim (if you feel a need to bring up the president in such a topic in the first place).

Posted by john_alderman
a resident of Crescent Park
on Mar 21, 2017 at 11:08 amjohn_alderman is a registered user.

@ Bob - Just so you are more aware of your own biases, the word "thug" was used in two of 36 comments not every other comment of the downtown story. There is also a level of violence in that incident that makes the word appropriate there, but feel free to use here and you can even it out, 2 to 2.

Posted by CPillars
a resident of Downtown North
on Mar 21, 2017 at 1:03 pmCPillars is a registered user.

@Bob so you're concerned that people are showing bias in an instance where the comparison is between theft by 15 year olds, and a hit and run where the perpetrators were 20 year olds and the victim was seriously injured. You definitely have your priorities straight.

Posted by SUMidtown
a resident of Midtown
on Mar 22, 2017 at 4:51 pmSUMidtown is a registered user.

I live near Greer Park and my son also knows of this kid and agrees that he is bad news. While I have sympathy for him and his family, I do feel that at some point, we all have to take responsibility for our behavior, even if the person is only 18. It has nothing to do with Trump or the teenage brain. We live in a society where theft is a crime and therefore, there are consequences. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for Jarred. He is young enough to turn his life around. I am happy that he was apprehended for this now and not a more serious crime later down the road and that no one was hurt. This goes for the 15 year olds too. I have heard a lot of sympathy for the kids but not so much for the victims of their crime.

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